Slow Burn
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: They're talking about something and she doesn't have a clue what the hell it is. Spoilers for Signature.


Thanks to Lauren for the once-over and the title. She's kinda a big deal...

* * *

She was pieces of a story scribbled over slips of paper, some lost, some found. Torn, creased, fraying pieces of parchment; slivers of story that never seemed to end. Just millions, just millions of petal-thin pages consumed by a myriad of words that didn't make sense.

The front stoop was her case, _is_ her case; she is shelved between 13 and 17 Brook St., Downtown.

"I didn't know you smoked." And then, "You don't smoke."

Her eyes pull easily to the glowing orange end of the cigarette and she shrugs, like she's just gotten the weight of the world lifted and she can finally breathe, move free. "Seemed fashionably prudent."

"What," he asks, tongue slicked with humor and maybe a beer or two as he plucks the thin stick from between her chapped fingers, "The hell does that mean?" With an almost-practiced, he flings the offending object out onto the sidewalk.

Her hands move to her knees and rub like she's cold.

She's not, but it's just something to do, another something to break the tension.

Olivia looks at the butt lying dormant on the sidewalk; it's always like this isn't it? A series of moments zippered with silence and so many unspoken words. "I don't... know."

They've stumbled upon _the_ conversation. It's the sort of conversation that requires you to be reclining on something, holding _that _cigarette (that he'd tossed) or a glass of cool vodka (haphazardly), considering either the smoke or the liquid burn, or the taste of either as they steal away seconds of your life. It's the sort of conversation that on the surface is just words (words pretending to be other words pretending to be words...) but is actually talking about the meaning of _anything_ with _that_ man.

With this man.

They're talking about something and she doesn't have a clue what the fuck it is.

Her middle and index finger rub against each other where the smoke had been before, a strange sensation, like a phantom pain. "I don't know."

It's a cool night, the slick sound of tires rolling over pavement just barely discernable in the distance. It makes her feel like she's on the outskirts of civilization and it isn't an entirely bad feeling. Thighs spread, her elbows on her knees still, still staring at the quiet street, there's nothing she'd like more than to make him disappear. "So you came by," she mentions to him, like she doesn't care and she does, she _did_.

Elliot does that thing where you look out at whatever's in front, pretend like there's something there instead of looking at what you're _supposed_ to be looking at... instead of meeting her eyes; he does that thing quite a lot now, when he's around her. When she allows him to be around. "I heard about your last case, Lake told me, I mean," and he follows up, as though placating her anger, "When I called to check in with the Captain."

One side of her mouth jumps, just a slip of a wry smile but it dissolves just as quickly as it had come. "Suppose I should ask about _your_ case, didn't think the extradition would hold, but... yeah."

"No," his hands on his knees now too, as he watches the cigarette he's flung, roll across the pavement, nudged by the mid-winter air. "Didn't come to talk about me, and you don't care about the case." She says nothing. "Hell, I don't even care about the case," he ends with a chuckle, hoping to break the tension.

It works, if only for a moment, "Yes you do, you always care," she says softly.

"That's true," he laments, sneaking a quick glance at her profile; she's haggard in the sodium arc from the street lamp, far more tired than usual. "Heard you went to the service."

Olivia only hums her assent to the point and drags her hands off of her thighs, places them on the stone of the building's porch and leans back. He doesn't pull off the small talk thing like he should; he tries so hard to make it all sound normally nonchalant, but Elliot's always too wrapped up in what-if and what-would-happen to be any of those things. "Yeah," she says and looks up, up at the cracked paint of the overhang and pretends that it's a summer's day and she's watching the paint dry, not waiting for him to say something.

Always waiting, always holding her breath and waiting for the other shoe to fall, waiting for him to fuck up her world with whatever it is that he really-needs-to-say today. "Heard you have a newborn son and you're _still_ fucking divorced," she wants to scream, of course, doesn't, it can never be that complicated between them.

Instead, she says, "How's Eli?"

The "father's" smile perks his lips and it suits him like nothing she's ever seen; it's a wonderful thing, to watch him when he talks about his kids. "Kathy's calling him Eli Manning, guess she wants him to play football," he wants there to be humor in his voice, but it's more like malice and Olivia doesn't want to appreciate that, but she does, "And she knows I fucking hate the Giants."

"Yeah," is her sigh. As an afterthought, "You hate the Jets more."

Elliot doesn't really know what to do with himself, so he just nods and says, "That's true. That's… true."

And then they both do the thing where they stare out at nothing in particular and pretend to think about things they can't talk about. And they _are_ thinking about things that they can't talk about, but they're both thinking the same thing-in particular-and both know that the other is thinking it. "How was it, the, the service, I mean."

"I don't want to talk about it," immediately, and then, "I don't even want to think about it anymore."

There's a pregnant silence that hangs between them and it sets her teeth on edge; he breaks it just before she's sure she's going to go out of her mind. "Okay, then." Elliot leans in to try and look at her face, "That's fine."

Olivia doesn't really know what to do; she's sure she's hurting and she's tired and she wants coffee and she wants to invite him upstairs and crawl inside him and hide for years and years. "Good… then."

"Wanna get coffee?" he asks and it's just what she needs to hear.

She smiles up at the night sky and feels pebbles digging into her palm and she couldn't care less. "It's two in the morning."

"And you're sitting on your stoop, smoking," sure, he states the obvious, that she's acting irrationally as it is.

Her fingers find the weathered pack at her side and she fingers it, slides a cigarette out and lights it. "Just give me a minute."

"Okay."

She doesn't smoke it, but watches as it burns out, remnants of what it once was in the air and on the ground and she doesn't feel much better for it.


End file.
